Cheese steaks -- and something more

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It's not a cellar bar in Boston, but Sewards Steak Shop is definitely a place where everybody knows your name.

Steeped in Allentown tradition, the eatery at the corner of 17th and Union streets has been a cozy haven for decades.

Owner Michael Sewards bought the shop from his father, John, in 1980. John bought it in 1958 when it was Kline's, then mostly a grocery store where neighbors could also get a limited selection of sandwiches.

Throughout the 1960s, John Sewards turned the focus of the grocery's selection toward imported meats from Germany, for which he would travel to New York.

The store also had the only franchise for Breyers ice cream in the area, Michael says, which made for another reason why the place was everybody's favorite.

"We also had a pretzel barrel that everybody loved," Sewards, 51, says, thinking back to when he was a kid helping out around the store.

He always knew that's where he wanted to work when he grew up, he says, reminiscing about how he and his brother used to carry soda bottles up and down the stairs for their dad every day after school before they were allowed to go out and play.

His mother, Sylvia, began making soups for the store and then her homemade baked beans.

By the time Michael took over, his mother had begun making homemade desserts daily and his dad had added a few tables, he says.

"I took out the grocery shelves and added more tables," he says as he motions toward the back of the shop, where a row of trophies tops the paneled wall.

In the beginning -- Michael's beginning -- he focused on making the best steak sandwich around. Though many still agree that's the case, the menu has expanded to reflect people's evolving preferences for burgers, wraps and salads.

Sports roots also run deep in the Sewards family, deeper even than the trophied teams Michael sponsors and coaches.

J. Milo Sewards, Michael's uncle, was the legendary Allentown High School basketball coach for whom Allen High School's gym is named.

If Michael got his chores done promptly after school, his Uncle Milo would allow him to invite a friend over to the Little Palestra -- now Allen's science building -- to watch the team practice. It was a huge treat, he says.

Photos of Milo and his teams line the walls of the shop, as do teams that played at Jack Coffield Stadium and other teams that played under the leadership of J. Birney Crum.

Michael has sandwiches named after the famous coaches and field -- the JMS, the JBC and the JCS -- for Milo, Crum and Coffield.

Local sports heros still congregate at Sewards, as did Austin Scott, who last week stopped by to eat and sign autographs after his stellar performance for Penn State in the Orange Bowl.

Local politicians, too, seem to swarm every day around noon, Sewards says.

He and his wife, Pat, still make soups and desserts every morning.

It's funny, he says, you know what's going to be ordered a lot for lunch by which desserts are on the menu on a given day.

"If there's peanut butter pie on the menu, we get a lot of orders for salads that day," he chuckles.